


Advice from The Spider

by EllyAvon



Series: Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Crushes, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, F/M, Girltalk, M/M, Makeup, Multi, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Natasha Romanov Knows Everything, Natasha and Tony are Buds, One Shot, Polyamory, Primping, Tony Feels, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 02:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4546488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllyAvon/pseuds/EllyAvon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha knows everything. Tony capitalizes on that after coming to a startling revelation.</p><p>Or: Nat gets ready for an undercover evening, Tony picks her outfit, and they have girltalk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advice from The Spider

There were clues. Subtle hints. Tony might have some of his field’s propensity for being wildly socially inept, (he had _tried_ talking to other engineers, he knew that as a group they were struggling a bit in the conversation department) but he wasn’t completely brain-dead. Just because his childhood had involved more tutors, boarding schools, ballroom dance lessons, than friendship, did not mean he couldn’t get along with people in his general cohort. Furthermore, it didn’t mean he would be completely oblivious when one of them fell in love with him.

Tony wasn’t used to that last part. People didn’t fall in _love_ with him. They fell in _lust_ with him, his money, his fame, the suit, his influence, even his body, though sadly that last one was the least likely of the list. These people also tended to fall in bed with him. He knew that expression on their faces. A hunger that looked straight through who Tony Stark was and into what Tony Stark could give. Or more, what could be taken, bartered, traded. Sometimes, there was something he wanted back from them, so it worked out nicely. Other times, he did just give. He liked giving and he had a lot to give. People deserved more Tony Stark in their lives.

Pepper was different. Pepper was his equal. She looked at him with love, desire, want, care, adoration. Accepted him wholly, for every damn flaw he could conjure. More than that, she was brilliant, fiery, terrifyingly competent. She had _freckles_ , damn, those freckles, and her legs went on for days. Their sex life deserved its own odes and accolades. She was afraid of swimming in the ocean. She was allergic to strawberries. Pepper _gave back_ ; saw _him_.

He had a ridiculously ostentatious ring picked out for her, and a platinum band picked out for when she said the ring was too much for daily wear.

He was prepared, after a lifetime of being wanted for stupid, shallow reasons, for Pepper Potts to be the only person who looked on him with love, for the rest of his life.

So, that was both awesome and settled.

But it also meant he was unprepared for someone _else_ to look at him with true adoration and affection. So unprepared, that he nearly missed it, when it happened. Then he’d moved swiftly from missing it entirely, to miscategorizing it (just close comradeship, just respect, just appreciation, just, just _just_...) to wondering. Wondering, if maybe, just maybe, someone else could look, was looking, at him with something other than want.

He literally and figuratively took solace in Pepper, and tried to crush down that other part of him that looked back. Tried to quell the warmth and the heat that rose up when their eyes locked. He’d gone on long trips, he’d picked fights, he worn his sunglasses indoors for an entire week.

It only seemed to get worse.

That was how he found himself sitting in his pajamas, on Natasha’s big, black bed.

He’d designed this room for her, knowing exactly what she would need if she wanted to continue doing her SHIELD work, or use her espionage skills for the Avengers’ benefit. Even if she didn’t want to, who couldn’t use compartmentalized storage spaces? She needed space for wigs and shoes and a wide variety of custom made outfits.

She was about half an hour away from meeting an informant. If Tony was uncertain about what that meant when she’d texted him back, he was fully sure when she let him in wearing only very uncharacteristically pink and lacy underwear.

They’d been friends and superhero colleagues long enough for him to know that those were not her normal underthings. It was a sign of a shift that he noticed how devastatingly beautiful she was, but didn’t ogle.

Their relationship had changed. Many things had changed. Tony was still a human man with a healthy sex drive, but his inclination toward promiscuity and objectification had shifted, in a direction he didn’t fully understand. And ugh, isn’t that why he was here in the first place?

He had simply meandered past her and fallen face-first into the pile of red pillows at the foot of her bed with a distressed noise.

She surveyed him, then turned back to her vanity to continue her process.

Her hair was wrapped up in a towel, and she reached blindly into a drawer to pull out her special foundation.

“You’re fucked, huh?” she said lightly, applying the makeup with a long spindly brush.

“Okay, so let’s pretend you’re me,” he says, tilting his face only enough for his words to escape the pillows. She gives him a raised eyebrow in the mirror, “I know, God, Nat, but pretend you’re me, okay, and you’ve got Pepper.”

“I’ve pretended that.” She purred, with a quirk of her lips, unnaturally pale with the foundation.

He ignored her, and continued, “pretend you have Pepper, and don’t bother pretending Pepper is any different than she is, because she’s perfect. Magical. She’s like a ginger unicorn of excellence! A nymph of the forest, a shining pearl of the darkest ocean-”

“Pepper’s delightful, Tony, everybody thinks so,” Natasha interrupts. Now she’s carefully brushing something brown over her collarbones, her cheeks, her jawline.

Tony takes a moment to think how strange it is to watch beautiful women do their makeup, but gives himself a little shake. “Yes, good. Everybody knows. And everybody knows she’s just a little bonkers for being in love with me, right?” He’s crawled over onto his stomach now, so he can watch her more carefully.

“Yes, that is right up there with the sky being blue,” she replies easily.

“Okay, so, what if-- what if there’s somebody else?” he asks, tentative.

Her hand freezes with a brush halfway up to her face. “I need you to be clear with me, right now, Stark, and say that again.”

“What if there’s somebody else who’s somehow perfect in basically every single way-- except-- except-- they like me too?”

She relaxes, clearly comforted by the fact that Tony hasn't hauled off and cheated on Pepper.  _"And wise but for loving me,"_ she murmurs, shaking her head a bit.

 _"L'amour est un oiseau rebelle,"_ he counters. She knows her Shakespeare-- and her operas and her ballet most of all.

She moves the brush over her cheeks, rubbing on a color that makes them match her underclothes perfectly. Her face is still, and the effect of half-makeup makes her look all the more like the porcelain doll she tends to resemble. Her eyes, green and calculating, are telling a different story. He knows she can’t have missed it. If she’s missed it it’s not happening.

Tony can’t decide which way would be worse.

She takes out another brush, a tiny one, and dusts her eyelids with silver.

“And what if,” he continues, when it becomes clear that she’s waiting for him to speak, “what if that person is really really perfect, too? And I can’t...”

She makes a quiet, humming noise.

“And there’s nothing I would do to hurt Pepper, I mean, I do, clearly, all the time, but not on purpose, you know?”

“Hush,” she says in a gentle voice, “let me finish this part and then we’ll talk.”

He sits quietly, and watches her paint black sweeps around her luminous eyes. Her deft, already pink-manicured fingers dig in another drawer and come out with what looks like superglue and a box of tiny hairs. Tony’s pretty sure it’s not superglue, or at least hopes it isn’t, when she efficiently applies a circle of it in a plastic dish, then dips little bushes of eyelashes in it, and presses them to her eyes.

He feels like a child again, watching his mother get ready for a gala. His mother had never done this in her underclothes, and never worn foundation made to protect one’s skin from acid, but it’s somewhat similar. The brushes, the smell of talc and perfume. The knowledge that he’s loved, trusted to witness something that most women keep private.

He wonders if his mother’s music box is somewhere, if Natasha would like to have it to put on the counter with her perfumes and concoctions. It had a tiny ballerina.

Natasha is like Maria Stark in very few ways, but for some reason she reminds him of his mother, frequently. Maybe it's this exact experience-- she's short with him, mean sometimes. Distant. Disinterested. But she does love him, trusts him. Will help him when he truly needs it, even if she's a little reticent. Yeah, just like mamma.

After the eyelashes are all in place, she looks up to him.

“You love him back, don’t you?” She inquires simply.

Tony’s heart leaps into his throat, and she smiles at him. It’s a small smile, but not a sad one. It’s one of gentle amusement, like he’s just been let in on a special secret.

Natasha misses nothing, he’s told her everything in his reaction, already. That’s why he came to her. She knows. As much as Black Widow can kill a man with her pinky, her real talent is this. Reading emotions and actions. Lying to Natasha is an exercise in futility.

“I’m trying not to!” He says weakly. “He’s just, he’s just so...” he waves his hands ineffectively.

“Perfect?” She provides, as he blurts,

“Steve!”

Her mouth forms a perfect little “Oh!” and she points at him. Caught. Tony’s face heats instantly. He hasn’t let himself say his name out loud for weeks, he can’t say it without sounding lovesick and needy.

She removes the towel from her head. Her hair is blonde and wrapped around a series of pink curlers. Pink is the theme tonight. Tony’s momentarily distracted by that.

“Yes. And he... loves me? I didn’t, I know I’m a narcissist and all, but I’m not making that part up, am I?”

“No, he loves you,” she says calmly, taking her hair down from cheap plastic curlers. It falls onto her shoulders in honey-gold spirals. “Very much, in fact.”

“Yeah. I know. And there’s Pepper, who’s just--”

“Perfect,” Natasha again supplies, tossing another curler into a basket.

“Yes, and I don’t even want to leave her, and I couldn’t ever take someone on the side with her, I don’t even want to because Steve’s the only one I want and he would never and, I wouldn’t do that to either of them. So, I’m, he’s, we’re, stuck.” Tony manages to get out. Natasha just keeps tossing curlers in the basket.

Tony is slightly concerned he might cry, right here, in Natasha’s room, which is ridiculous. So he buries his head in the pillows again for awhile. She hums what sounds like a hymn. He can hear the sound of a brush going through her hair, then the quiet shnick of a lipstick tube opening.

When he finally looks up at her, she gives him an amused smile. Not pitying or empathetic. Amused.

"You're right, Captain America would make a terrible mistress." She says fondly.

They’re better friends than that, Tony is pretty sure. She’s not being mean. So he narrows his eyes at her, “What?” Hope flutters in his chest like a tiny motor.

“Well,” she says, finishing the application of her dusky rose lipstick, “I have to give you credit for your lack of possessiveness, that’s for sure. I think it’ll make what happens next much easier for you. But you are a narcissist. You’ve missed two key factors here.” He can’t imagine what she means. “And you can’t imagine what I mean,” she says smugly. That’s a little creepy.

She turns around, fully made up now, uncharacteristic golden hair framing her face. She looks warm and sweet and innocent. It’s strange, but Natasha’s sharp, emerald eyes stare out at him. She almost always wears lenses on assignment.

“You missed how they feel about each other. You missed how _Pepper_ feels about Steve,” she says, holding up one finger, “and,” she says, holding up the second, “You missed how _Steve_ feels about Pepper.”

Tony just stares at her, running scenario after scenario in his head. Memories of the two of them laughing with each other, blushing, smiling. Steve’s face, a perfect picture of pleasure and guilt as he “crashes,” their dates. Pepper, a similar expression of delight and shame, a flush high in her cheeks, when she sees him enter a room. Steve’s eyes on her face, her hand on his shoulder. Both of them, smiling, shaking their heads at him, with identical, equal, affection and consternation.

Everything is swirling. His heart soars for a brilliant moment, and then plummets hard.

Natasha turns back around, and digs in her drawer for a moment, humming that same hymn. When she turns to face him again, it’s even more disconcerting, because she’s donned unremarkable blue contact lenses. Now, he has to look carefully to see Nat, and comes back with--

“Kirsten,” she says, with all of the vowel sounds stretched, and her voice is a few steps higher than usual. “How do I look?” It’s almost a Scandinavian accent, but not quite. Lighter, cleaner.

“Where the hell are you supposed to be from?” he asks, keeping one eye shut because Kirsten is a little freaky.

“The Cities,” she says in that same strange voice, smiling brightly.

“Which cities? What are you talking about?”

“The man I’m meeting,” she says her normal, purring voice. The one that’s low, that has the quietest rumblings of snow and Russia. “He will know exactly which cities.”

She rises and goes to her wardrobe. “Which dress?” She holds out two. They’re both long and silvery. “You need to talk to Pepper,” she advises. And gestures impatiently for him to choose a dress.

He stares up at her with empty confusion, terror, but chooses the dress on the right. It has a sweetheart neckline and that goes with the whole-- _Kirsten_ thing she’s working.

She rolls her eyes as she hangs the other dress back up. "You came into my room with two people madly in love with you and that's how you'll leave."

"But-- "

"No, they love you. They love each other. That will not change."

“But-- I’m not--” he wanted to put into words how happy Pepper and Steve could be without him-- that having him in the middle was just-- by nothing came out, and Natasha barreled forward.

“Please don’t tell me that you have a talking house, a friend who is a Demi-God, and still are too inflexible to think about open relationships or polyamory?”

Tony thought about that for a moment. It was a fair point. "You know full well that JARVIS isn’t a talking house. You’ve seen his code, Nat! And if they love each other, why would they want me in the mix? I'm well known for not playing well with others?"

She rolls her eyes again. It's not as effective with the contact lenses. "You, Anthony Edward Stark, are a brilliant and generous man. You'll figure it out. Talk. To. Pepper. I imagine you'll actually be very good at sharing, if somewhat poor at communicating, at least at first." She saunters over to a wall and begins tucking a terrifying array of weapons onto her person. "Go get my shoes, please," she instructs.

He knows better than to disobey Natasha. He sees the shoes she obviously wants, they’re the only ones in the same shade of pink. He plunks himself down onto the floor and holds a shoe out to her. He does this for Pepper-- helps her into complicated shoes. He has a sudden, vivid mental picture of Steve kneeling at Pepper’s feet, using those enormous, gentle hands to put her delicate feet into imperious Jimmy Choos. Okay, yes, that definitely works for him. He searches around his head for feelings of anger or jealousy, and only comes up with heat. Huh.

Natasha smiles at him, warm and real again. It’s still strange to see this fluffy blonde version of her, but it’s her. He does up the tiny silvery clasps, and pats her on the calf, somewhat in a daze.

“I have to go, _Antoshka,_ ” she says, “but please, go talk to Pepper before all three of you lose it completely. It’s much better to start it this way than with a pair of you spontaneously making out, I promise.”

A thought prickles in his brain, and he looks up at her from the floor, “How do you know so much about this?” he asks with no small amount of suspicion.

“Mmmm,” she hums, fitting the gilded Widow’s Bite that Tony made for her to her right wrist. “Monogamy is lovely, but it’s not for me. I can’t be the end-all be-all for my partner. I might die this evening, after all. I mean, I won’t, but I could. I might get assigned a yearlong undercover mission in Novosibirsk. What’s my partner to do then?”

“Keep hiding in the vents and shooting random agents with tranq arrows?” Tony suggests, because it is what Clint does when Natasha’s away for too long.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but he’d be worse if he didn’t have Phil.”

“Have?! Phil?!” Tony sputters.

“Again, truly not your business, but we’ve had this arrangement for quite some time. It works beautifully. You’re welcome to ask me about it again after you talk to Pepper, and you both talk to Steve. Now get out of my room, unless you want to make me late.”

Tony is still sitting dazed on the floor, and Natasha hauls him to his feet, drags him out of her quarters after her, kisses him on the cheek, and shoves him in the direction of the penthouse.

This is either going to go really well, or really, really poorly.

**Author's Note:**

> Natasha quotes Much Ado About Nothing-- when Benedick is proclaiming the virtues of Beatrice-- 
> 
> "They say the lady is fair; ’tis a truth, I can bear them witness.  
> And virtuous; ’tis so, I cannot reprove it.  
> And wise, but for loving me;  
> by my troth, it is no addition to her wit,  
> nor no great argument of her folly,  
> for I will be horribly in love with her!"
> 
> Tony quotes the opera Carmen back to her, "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle," which means "Love is a rebel bird."
> 
> "The Cities," to which Natasha is referring are Minneapolis and St. Paul. They're widely known as "The Twin Cities," (like the baseball team, the Minnesota Twins?) but people from the area simply refer to them as "The Cities." Nat's undercover game is like whoa.
> 
> Check out the Epilogue-- which is next in the series :)


End file.
